Best Computer

[Anonymous]

What is the best pc computer for 3d max mental ray and Vray ,Auto Cad , Rivet ,Adobe.C4d and unreal engine ..

[irishman_team_kilber]

the best computer is the one you can afford and the price range you have to spend and also depends if you want a desktop or a laptop computer. please don't say "money is no object" because if we find you a computer then you say that will be to expensive then money is an object.

please give a price range and what type of computer you want

MR is not used in max anymore and nvidia have discontinued it

[Anonymous]

 Thank you for your quick respond, My budget is no more than 3000.00.. And I would like to get a desktop.  

[irishman_team_kilber]

my best advice is to build it yourself if you know how to or if you have a friend who can build computers, then you can choose your own hardware

for a VGA card link https://knowledge.autodesk.com/sites/default/files/file_downloads/3dsmax2018_GFX_ResultsSept2017.pdf these are cerfied by autodesk but these can be very pricey all depending how long you been using your 3d software and your going to into the industry try and find a dual port for a dual monitor.

i would go for an intel core i7 hard drive size 4 terabytes 64 gigs of ram. i would also go for a 4 slot motherboard. look online and also go to a computer store and see it for yourself don't just add it to the cart and buy it until you seen it in person.

but this is just my opinion. people will have different opinions

[Anonymous]

I would avoid a computer from brands as they are typically more expensive for what they have inside.

In UK there are places where you can choose what components you want and they assemble it for you. I guess in USA and other places there are similar ones. For example:

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/buy-computers/

Take a look how you can customise it and automatically changes the price.

3000 (I guess dollars) is enough to get a powerful computer, at least a i9, Intel Core i9-7900X  or Intel Core i9-7920X, a motherboard that support i9, probably an ASUS, 64gb ram (no need of expensive faster one), a 500gb samsung solid state drive for applications and normal hard drive 5 terabytes for storage. At least a 1070 Gforce graphic card but you can go to higher as long you are not forced to cut down the rest of components.

I would choose also a good case as Fractal Design, water cooling pre installed for the CPU (no need go to expensive models) and 700kw power source. No  sound card as all motherboards now include decent ones on board.

[hanadi.alnajjar]

Thank you, KarlAlkimor 🙂

[Anonymous]

Price is everything. You would not spend $10,000 on a PC that is actually worth $2500 would you?

This being said I would look into AMD Ryzen rather than Intel as they are in many cases better CPUs for work and for less money. I would not advise buying a "certified GPU", I am new to Max and game design but trust me, it is a gimmick.

They want you to buy certified GPU's "workstation grade", "precision GPUs" lol, give me a break...Those GPUs cost $2000 for something that is 5+ years old, and has less than half the power of a modern 2018 gaming GPU for $500, don't fall into that trap, it is mostly for military type uses where they need components to be 100% flawless, they are just a wee bit more optimized.

I would get a Nvidia 10 series GPU with more than 4gb of VRAM or an AMD Vega, minimum 16gb of ram, an SSD to run Max on and the OS, DO NOT make the mistake of building a PC or buying one and putting the OS and your most used programs on a HDD, if you do that you might as well buy a Intel Celeron CPU from 2008.

[schrenk]

As you also mentioned Adobe-Stuff I would recommend:

I7-8700K (can be overclocked to 4GHZ+) and for Adobe stuff, higher GHz rates are better than more cores

64GB DDR4-2666

GTX1060 6Gb

512GB SSD as systemdrive

1TB M.2 for your work files

2x2TB WD red as Backup-Raid

You can add a couple of cheap Dual Xeon E5-2670 later (á 800€/Machine) oder Ryzen1950x nodes later if you need more renderpower.

[Anonymous]

1TB M.2  is the same than SSD from performance point of view (in some cases better) Rather expensive and would make sense to have one or the other instead both.

With his budge I think he can get a better CPU and GPU

2 terabyte as storage doesn't look enough. I think is personal but I prefer my backups done with external drives instead raid. If a hard drive corrupts also will corrupt the mirror, the same if files are deleted accidentally. It only works with mechanical faillure.

Two benchmark sites to know what are you buying. Notice that most of CPUs, specially high range, can be overclock. But depends of the stability of the system and how the motherboard supports it. ASUS is generally fine

CPU

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

GPU

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

[schrenk]

Are you serious? M.2 is way faster than an SATA-capped SSD. Also M.2 is mostly more expensive and even with modern moboards its a pain in the ass to get m.2s working as systemdrive (even if you dont need that extra speed there). So an SSD as systemdrive an a M.2 as workingdrive makes totally sense IMHO - I dont wanna miss my M.2 when it comes to videoediting so since adobe stuff was mentioned I would def. recommend this.

The 2TB are just for a local backup! (raid 1 for system ssd and the 1 TB M.2) - for sure you need an external NAS (with 10gbe connection if possible) where you store your finished work!

Oh, and yes there are way faster CPUs and GPUs out there but have you actually looked at the price range? OP asked for a priceable system for 3D and Adobe stuff so ...

[Anonymous]

M.2 is a interface different than SSD but both use solid memory instead a hard drive. It is not worth to have both as both are solid memory. SSD has a interface bottleneck that M.2 potentially doesn't have. That is the reason I said M.2 is in some cases better (I didn't said that opposite). But remember, M.2 is just the form factor.  Many M.2 drives can come in SATA versions giving 0 advantage as that is the same interface than SSD. You would need to be sure it supports NVMe and those are expensive. But yes, M.2 is the future and SSD is the past, simply be aware that a wrong installation can make it the same in performance and worse in price. And if it is a NVMe then is true is better avoid being a boot drive that complicates things and makes all more expensive, he didn't mention video editing.

About the CPU GPU etc, I guess is about personal preferences, but I think that for the budge he has (he said 3000) those would be under performing.

[Anonymous]

When he says his budget is $3000 I'm sure he doesn't want to spend all of it.

I would look at this:

Rzyen 1800x $300

AMD Vega Frontier $1000 (I doubt you need this)

OR

AMD 580 $400

M.2 500gb SSD $200

2tb HDD $100

Motherboard $300

32gb RAM $200

PSU $100

$2200 for the whole thing with the best GPU your money can buy, or the lesser 8gb GPU $1800

Granted this is building it yourself, you did not mention this, if you buy it prebuilt add $500 minimum to it for the labor and name.

You only want the m.2 for your most used programs, if you need more space just add another SSD to put programs on. You want an HDD for Mass storage, 32gb of RAM I think is plenty, I'm getting by with 4k res 4k textures 26gb of RAM, VRAM is important.

Save the leftover $1000 and invest it or take your special someone on some nice dates lol

[Anonymous]

Granted this price is actually higher than what you can find, I'd say subtract $300 across the board.

If you want to buy one prebuilt I'd look into HP or Lenovo as they have the cheapest prices

[Anonymous]

I would go to Intel and Geforce, less risks of compatibility. But at the end this is about personal tastes and I'm sure you would be able to build a powerful system.

[Anonymous]

Problem is going Intel and GeForce just because of what you said put us all
in the same situation we were in a couple years ago. At least consider the
other side.

[Anonymous]

I think AMD shares a bit of responsibility about that because his lack of CPU development (until recently)  and compatibility problems with GPUs in 3d creation programs. But true, the more the merrier. 

[Anonymous]

It is true that they made some stupid mistakes in the past. However, I see people still constantly buying Intel and Nvidia without ever considering AMD, then the same people complain about getting bad performance after a few years haha. If it were not for the new Ryzen and Vega CPUs laptops would have 980M's and I7 dual core CPUs still.

AMD also has Prorender and other tools and software for FREE, Fressync is also free whereas Nvidia charges hundreds of dollars for the same products...

Personally I have an Intel CPU, but when I upgrade soon I will be sure to support AMD.

[Isaac_Zuniga]

I think a good question is to ask yourself:

Am I a content creator or am I a gamer?

The reason for that question is because Nvidia's Quadros are not meant for gaming, and the GeForce series is not meant for graphic design. (Same applies for AMD's equivalents to those series.) While they can run the programs that they were not designed for, you will not get the best performance out of them. (Quadros will not get you 2,000 fps at 4K on games and GeForce cards will struggle with Workstation-grade applications with even basic screen draws.)

Another thing to consider is if your computer is going to render everything, if not, then you do not need a Xeon processor or an i9 chip. I have an i7 in my machine from over 7 years ago and I have excellent performance. Though, I have dedicated machines for rendering my projects with more attuned hardware.

I'd say, if you want to get a Quadro, get a P2000, because it's capable of comfortable 4K (if you have a 4k screen) and it's pretty powerful, enough that it will not break your bank. The rest is up to you, but make sure your main drive is an SSD, or else your waiting times with these applications will be long.

These are just my preferences (and my current setup), feel free to take what you want from what I said.

[Anonymous]

I see your point, however 3DS Max is a game design software, therefore you
are most likely going to be creating games. Which means a gaming GPU is
going to be better.

I never understood the point of the Quadro cards, not only do you get half
of the performance vs AMD FirePro or their new Frontier but it costs 2x as
much as well... It just seems like a scam to get people to buy some GPUs
that are "certified". In the case of Quadro GPUs running well on Max,
Autodesk needs to fix that now, because clearly it is not a GPU issue but
rather a support issue and Autodesk needs to better optimize gaming GPUs.
If they were all optimized by Autodesk equally then a 1080Ti or Vega
Frontier would run laps around the P6000 because they have far more raw
power.

It really is not a GPU problem but rather Autodesk, and as much as they
make per year in subscription services being a $28 billion company this
should be a non issue.

Not trying to argue with anyone, just stating the problem I've seen with
Autodesk and "workstation" cards, it just doesn't make sense

[Isaac_Zuniga]

I disagree with that big time, especially with the part that you said "3ds Max is meant for games so it should work with a gaming card". Yes, it will, but not as well as it will function with a Quadro card, you cannot expect a gaming card, a card that was specifically tuned for gaming (game engines are mostly pre-calculated), to do realtime raytracing calculations. 3ds Max may be "made for game design", but it is still a workstation-grade application that performs best on workstation-grade hardware. It is possible to run the program on a gaming card, but it will be harder for it to perform as well as a Quadro can, especially with no problems.

I've had first-hand experience with trying gaming cards with 3ds Max vs Quadro cards, and my experience was not positive at all.

Back when the GTX 980 TI came out, I (stupidly) bought a GTX 980 TI AMP EXTREME! version from Zotac. It was too big for my case, and required a super powerful power supply. Fortunately, my workstation came with a 1,300 watt power supply so it was not an issue for me. What was an issue was the major performance hit I took in 3ds Max and Modo. 3ds Max performed poorly with the new card and it's latest drivers. Modo simply failed to draw the viewports with the Zotac video card. It was great at games, but that's about it.

However, when I replaced the video card with my weak Quadro K620, 3ds Max worked just fine, and Modo was able to draw it's viewports rendering it functional again.

This video can explain a little better with Maya. (The video is dated but shows why Quadros exist.)

Different experiences for different people, but I personally do believe that there are good reasons why the Quadro cards exist.

But hey, to each their own mate. 🙂